SOME TALK ABOUT WILD GARDENS. 



55 



secondly, to study those congruous to each other and to their surroundings ; 

 and thirdly, on the whole to give preference to our native and naturalised 

 kinds, like Scotch Fir, Juniper, Yew, Holly and Box. It would take me too 

 long to enter in detail on the subject of their arrangement in planting. 

 Happily can we not sum up that matter thus — "Plant as Nature does 

 when at her best," i.e. at her most beautiful. 



There are few Conifers which may not, I think (given space enough), 

 be well made the chief setting of the wild garden. Those I like least for 

 the purpose are such as have a character little congruous with our native 

 sorts, or at least with North European species. The Wellingtonia, Picea 

 nohilis, Thuya gigantea, Lawson's and most Cypresses, even the Nordmann 

 Pine, are instances w^hich occur to me at once as having, according to my 

 notions (beautiful as most of those Conifers are), too foreign an air to be 

 generally wisely included. On the other hand (I scarcely know w^hy) 

 Pinus insigyiis, Cupressiis macrocarjM, Picea Pinsapo, Pinus Cemhra and 

 P. montana, and practically all the Mountain Spruce or the procumbent 

 Juniper class, impress me as thoroughly suitable in the proper situation. 



This is really matter of taste. And even those who more or less agree 

 with me in the foregoing doubts may also agree that the class of Conifers 

 which I have been depreciating, for inclusion in the wild garden proper, 

 are admirable for an intermediate purpose, that, namely, of connecting the 

 wild garden with the more formally kept grounds, w^hether in the form of 

 avenues, Conifer plantings, or as part of a Pinetum. 



Speaking broadly, deciduous forest trees should for several reasons 

 rarely be included in the plantings, even as background, although if there 

 already, they may be, " upon terms," left ; but Birch of all sorts and 

 small Beech are good exceptions. 



I can fancy a botanical plant-lover finding a supreme interest and 

 delight in furnishing his wild garden with numbers of native and exotic 

 forms of the smaller and less telling species, even " naturalising " all he 

 may. But this is, and will probably remain, the exception. For, 

 generally, the wild garden will, for long at least, continue to be thought 

 of as the most suitable home for telling plants of large habit, excluded 

 from borders for their size and rankness, yet too beautiful to be absent 

 from the English garden. 



Thus the giant Fennels (Ferulas), and the big reeds (Arundo), and 

 Hemlocks (Heracleums), and Aralias and Dimorphanthus, and the Eastern 

 Poppies, and big Polygonums, and ornamental cut-leaved Rheums (Rhu- 

 barbs) will take a front rank in the list of herbaceous forms suited especially 

 for the largest spaces, for a single large plant of most of these will each 

 furnish several square yards. I have, too, specially referred to this class 

 for the purpose of a caution. Beautiful and valuable as they are in 

 their earlier growing season, they are many of them ugly and weedy later, 

 and their planting ground should therefore generally be carefully chosen ; 

 say a spot to themselves unvisited after early autumn. Or, as an alterna- 

 tive, it involves but trifling labour regularly to cut down the foliage as it 

 becomes sere and ugly, and to scheme that early spring and late autumn 

 bulbs, planted between the grosser subjects, shall utilise the uncovered 

 space and prolong the interest and colouring of the spot. 



I may, however, here observe that while (taking such precautions) a 



